Sked and Tory spin
From Mr Christopher Booker
Sir: Dr Alan Sked has written yet another venomous piece on the UK Independence party (`Sceptics who betray Britain', 10 February), which four years ago chucked him out as its leader. The three main charges Dr Sked levels against his former party have one significant feature in common. First, he recycles a Daily Telegraph story alleging that Nigel Farage, one of two UKIP MEPs, had attempted to 'blackmail' the Conservative party by asking for /I. million as the price of UKIP not putting up candidates against Tory Eurosceptics at the forthcoming election. Since both the central players in this episode, Mr Farage and a Tory peer, are well known to me, I couldn't help a wry smile at the shameless spin the Telegraph gave to this story. Far from being UKIP 'blackmail', the idea that it might be bribed to call off its candidates came solely from his Tory opposite number.
Secondly, Dr Sked criticises the record of the two UKIP MEPs in the European Parliament because they don't turn up for committee meetings. Again, how interesting that this is precisely the party line put Out in press releases from Tory MEPs. As a journalist, I can only say that the UKIP MEPs have been able to tell me much more of the inside story about that corrupt and empty charade than was ever given away by any of their more discreet and Europhile Tory predecessors.
Thirdly, and seemingly most damning of all. Dr Sked attempts yet again to recycle his discredited tale about Mr Farage having lunch some years ago with a member of the BNP. When this first appeared in the Times just before the 1999 Euro-elections, supported by an article from Dr Sked, I checked it out. Although I am not a member of UKIP, I had spoken on UKIP platforms, as on those of the Tory and Referendum parties, and several times alongside Mr Farage. As someone who has no truck with any kind of racist views, I needed to be absolutely sure of the facts.
What I discovered was indeed shocking, but not as Dr Sked would have us believe. The BNP member who set up the famous lunch turned out to have had close personal links not with Farage but with Dr Sked himself, who was in the process of being ejected from UKIP's leadership amid considerable acrimony. When Farage arrived, Dr Sked's young friend confirmed that he had joined the BNP, which Farage told him was a very silly thing to have done. The two left the restaurant, where they were approached by another BNP member waiting outside. The three men were then surreptitiously snapped by a hidden cam eraman, and blurred copies of the resulting picture were widely and anonymously circulated.
What was particularly interesting about this nasty little fiction was how it resurfaced in the Times more than a year later, just when during the Euro-election campaign the Tories were worried by indications that UKIP was going to do rather well. The day before it appeared. a BBC journalist was rung up by the political assistant to a senior member of the Tory shadow Cabinet, offering an exclusive interview on 'revelations about a leading member of UKIP' about to be published. How convenient, therefore, that, just when the Tories are again worried about UKIP's possible impact on their electoral fortunes, this ancient canard should yet again be resurrected, alongside two other triumphs of the Tory spin machine.
Christopher Booker
Litton, Bath
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